If you were never lucky enough to receive former talk-show host Joe Franklin’s “Sincerity Speech,” it goes something like this:

“Young man, the most important thing you can demonstrate to ensure a successful career is sincerity. There is no substitute for sincerity. The key that unlocks every door is sincerity.

“And once you learn to fake sincerity . . .”

Not that we don’t by now know the score, but it’s never a bad idea to take a refresher, some continuing education credits.

Those sincere, sensitive, soulful and at times even dubious looks Katie Couric gave a screwball kid, Manti Te’o, during their televised chat Thursday appeared lousy with sincerity. It was tough to tell the Notre Dame linebacker was being had, again, this time for every ratings point and advertising dime he was worth.

The day before the interview appeared on “Katie” — syndicated by Disney/ABC, it appeared here on Ch. 7 — TV news organizations received orders on how the show’s chosen-for-release video must be presented for promotional purposes, prior to the telecast:

1) “The clips are for broadcast TV use only. No more than :60 from the clips may be excerpted.”

2) “You must provide an on-screen credit or verbal mention for the program indicating the clips are from a ‘Katie Exclusive airing Thursday.’ ”

3) “The ‘Katie’ bug [logo] and ‘exclusive’ chyron [graphic] must remain on the clips at all times and cannot be blurred, covered or cropped in any manner.”

You get their drift: We’re out to make this pathetic kid’s self-made misfortune the best thing that ever happened to us!

Those heartfelt, sensitive and even motherly stares and questions from Couric to Te’o? That was just business, nothing more or better. But you knew that.

“[Snowboarder] Halldor Helgason tried his first triple of the night. Going huge! … Whoa! Whacks his head pretty good on the landing. Comes down hard on his head.

“X-Games medics do take him to the hospital. He has a CT scan. His head is cleared. He only suffered a concussion.”

Later, Bruland seemed delighted to report a fellow who finished third in an event might have done better if not for the “three bolts in his wrist.”

And at the end of her on-site report, she and ESPN found a few seconds to add that X-Games Snowmobile Freestylist Caleb Moore is in “stable condition.”

Moore, evacuated by helicopter, underwent emergency heart surgery the day before after he was crushed by his machine during a stunt in an X-Games final. Yep, the lead story — one that pointed to ESPN’s culpability — became a throw-in note.

Oh, and no word from Bruland or SportsCenter on Moore’s brother, Colten, who separated his pelvis Friday in the same event.

* Devils-Capitals on MSG-Plus Friday was going fine, a good, telecast for the good senses — Devils TV, including wraparounds, is always strong — when with four minutes left and play ongoing in a 2-1 game, MSG found the need to post a two-line graphic: “Devils Post Game, Next.” Come on.

* MLB Network’s “Top 50 Prospects” is on tomorrow at 9 p.m.

* Harold Lederman, who reminds us there’s still a place for no-frills honesty in telecasts, has signed for three more years to continue as HBO’s see-it/say-it ringside boxing judge.

* Mike Francesa is so given to dismiss callers as peons unworthy of his attention that on successive days he cannibalized his own Super Bowl contest. On Thursday, he didn’t realize the fellow he was dismissing had won. On Friday, as revealed by the blog Bob’s Blitz, he tossed a guy who had the correct answer to Francesa’s hasty, disinterested, misread question.

* NCAA Builds Character Game of the Week: Division III Maine-Presque Island beat Maine-Augusta, 121-61. Two M-PI starters played more than 30 minutes, and the winners attempted 39 3-pointers!

Bottom line serves up spoilers

We should be grateful ESPN is only the “Worldwide Leader In Sports.” If it were anything that provided an essential service — say, a subway system or an insane asylum — we’d wind up wandering Crazy Street.

ESPN made it clear tennis fans need not arise at 3 a.m., Saturday to watch the women’s Australian Open final. Nope, ESPN invited them to watch the tape on ESPN2 at 9 a.m.

So that’s what folks planned for — assiduously avoiding info accidents — and did. At 9 a.m. on a cold Saturday, they sat, at ESPN’s urging, to watch the final of a major. Perfect!

But with Victoria Azarenka and Li Na tied in the final set, ESPN’s relentless, distracting, view-shrinking — and totally needless — crawl along the bottom suddenly declared: “Azarenka comes back to defeat Li to win the Australian Open.”

Nurse! Nurses! What ESPN does all the time, it did again — only this time waited until the final set! Quality control!

But reader Andrew Seewald, ambushed by ESPN’s standard “Bottom Line” neglect, admits an upside: He never before knew — over and over and over — that “the Celtics had never lost an OT game by such a wide margin as they did Friday night.”

* Two recent stories that should have made big news and noise, but barely made a sound:

1. A Providence full-scholarship basketball player, center James Still, was sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison for an unprovoked assault on a Providence student in 2010, a beating that left the victim disfigured, even following plastic surgeries.

His co-defendant, full-scholarship basketball player Johnnie Lacy, previously was sentenced to a minimum of three years for his part in the same beating.

From Jan. 23’s Providence Journal: “The players had been drinking alcohol and were walking near campus when they decided, according to case evidence, that for no good reason they would beat the next person they encountered.”

2. NBA Players Association boss Billy Hunter, in an independent investigation, was revealed to have placed millions of dollars in NBAPA funds in a failing bank without disclosing his son is a director of that bank.

In a statement, Hunter claimed he was pleased the investigation found that, “I have not engaged in criminal acts nor was I involved in misappropriation of union funds.” Well, good for him!